General Roman Calendar

The General Roman Calendar indicates the days of the year to which the Roman Rite assigns liturgical celebrations of saints and "mysteries of the Lord" for observance everywhere. National and diocesan liturgical calendars, as well as those of religious institutes and even of continents, add other saints or transfer the celebration of a particular saint from the date assigned in the General Calendar to another date.

These liturgical calendars also indicate the degree or rank of each celebration: Memorial (which can be merely optional), Feast or Solemnity. Among other differences, the Gloria is said or sung at the mass of a Feast, but not at that of a Memorial, and the Creed is added on Solemnities.

The General Calendar assigns celebrations of saints to only about half the days of the year, and contains relatively very few of the saints recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and only a fraction of those listed in the 776-page volume Roman Martyrology, which does not contain the names of all the saints legitimately venerated. The Martyrology assigns several saints to each day of the year and gives a very brief description of each saint or group of saints.

While canonization involves the addition of the saint's name to the Roman Martyrology, it does not necessarily involve insertion of the saint's name also into the General Roman Calendar, which mentions only a very limited selection of canonized saints.

Many sources give calendars that mention one or more saints for each day of the year, usually selected from those listed in the Roman Martyrology. One example is Saints by Day. They mention the saints of the General Roman Calendar, but they also give names of saints not included in the General Roman Calendar, especially on a day, known as a feria, to which the General Roman Calendar assigns no celebration whatever of a saint.

"Feria" is a Latin word that, in ecclesiastical usage, means "weekday"; more precisely, it refers in the calendar to days on which no saint is celebrated. "Ferial" is an adjective formed from "feria" and is used in connection with a noun, as in the phrase "ferial Mass".

The General Calendar is printed, for instance, in the Roman Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours. These are up to date when printed, but additional feasts may be added later. For that reason, if those celebrating the liturgy have not inserted into the books a note about the changes, they must consult the current annual publication, known as the "Ordo", for their country or religious congregation. These annual publications, like those that, disregarding the feasts that are obligatory in the actual church where the liturgy is celebrated, list only celebrations included in the General Calendar, are useful only for the current year, since they omit celebrations impeded because of falling on a Sunday or during periods such as Holy Week and the Octave of Easter.